Thom Yorke, frontman of the rock band Radiohead, was attacked by a pro-Palestinian spectator during a concert Wednesday evening in Melbourne, Australia.
The singer and songwriter was giving a solo performance when a member of the audience challenged him on the subject of the war in Gaza: “How many dead children will it take for you to condemn the genocide in Gaza?” .
Responding sharply by accusing him of ruining the concert, Thom Yorke provoked him by ordering him to join him on stage: “Don’t stand there like a coward, come here and say it to my face”.
Thom Yorke left the stage briefly as the audience booed the heckler. The singer returned a few minutes later to perform “Karma Police”, a Radiohead hit released in 1997.
In 2017, the British group denounced a campaign urging it to cancel a concert in Israel, calling calls for a boycott condescending and an “extraordinary waste of energy”.
Later, in a publication on the social network Twitter (at the time), the singer stressed that “playing in a country does not mean endorsing its government”.
“We have played in Israel for over 20 years with successive governments, some more liberal than others. Like in America. We do not support (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu any more than Donald Trump, but we continue to play in the United States,” he explained.
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